Whilst home in North Wales a while ago (around Christmas time) I visited the Oriel Mostyn gallery in Llandudno. The gallery had recently had a makeover and the new look and extension is brilliant.
The current exhibitions were also very interesting, one in particular. ‘The Silent Village’ is a touring exhibition curated by Russell Roberts centering around a film made in the 1940′s of the same title. The film was made with the support of the Ministry of Information London but filmed in South Wales and the reasons for it’s creation takes a bit of explaining:
In 1942 the Nazi’s had occupied the small Czechoslovakian mining village of Lidice. A village in many ways similar to the small mining communities of Wales. During it’s occupation a small number of the village members resisted and carried out an assassination of the Nazi general Heydrich. As punishment for this the German army obliterated the village, shooting all of the male inhabitants and taking the women and children away in murderous gas vans disguised as concentration camp vans.
This shocking news prompted the making of ‘The Silent Village’ to tell the story of Lidice as a way of demonstrating the cruelty of the Nazi enemy and really hammering home what the results of a German occupation in Britain could be. The director Humphrey Jennings chose the South Wales village of Cwmgiedd for its similarities in the small mining communities way of life. The first half of the film beautifully portrays life in the small Welsh village. No professional actors were used as the film had a lot of support with the local community who sympathized with the horrifying news from the continent. For me this adds a lot of value to the movie as it appears to be quite an honest portrayal of life in a small village in the 1940′s told by the actual villagers.
As the film progresses the Nazi invaders presence becomes more and more menacing. This is where the film gets quite strange for viewers in the 21st century post devolution. The Welsh villagers act out the Nazi’s attempt to dismantle any resistance by banning the teaching of Welsh in schools and other restrictions. Quite strange as the villagers ancestors are likely to have actually experienced a very similar situation first hand from the English government under a 100 years earlier. However I really wouldn’t want to dwell on this aspect too much as clearly the comparison ends there as the movie then demonstrates the full horror and evil of the Nazi’s reprisal.
Without going too deep into the historical and cultural complexities of this film it really is a brilliant memorial to the village of Lidice and a very interesting insight into the life of a small mining village in Britain in the 1940′s.
